Stupid scale question

I'm in the process of starting to learn my first scales. Right now I'm concentrating on the Major Scale, and I'm now quite familiar with the scale. My question is, is how do I move this scale down the neck? Right now I just play it over and over within the first 4 frets that it's contained in. Do I just move it up one fret at a time, repeating the pattern, or is there more to it than that?

Sorry for the dumb question, but all of the online resources that I've found just point out the specific position for the notes in the scale, but don't explain what I'm supposed to do with it.

ok, so here's the scale that I've been doing:. I've played this from low to high, starting on the low e string and working up to the high E string, then back down.

If I just start moving this around the fret board, how does this specific pattern still manage to have any relevance? Also, this scale pattern looks a LOT different than the tabbed out patterns that I see in most of the UG lessons. I'm having a hard time fitting all of this stuff together to a point where I can start understanding what I'm actually doing. I want to make sure that as I'm going through these motions, that I'm understanding what I'm doing so that I can properly find my way around the guitar.

I think so. I've looked at the major scales from the UG lessons and I'm starting to see the connection.

I was having a major bonehead moment that I just managed to get over. The Gmajor scale is indeed the same thing (but moved up a fret). I was looking at the tab, and for whatever reason, was seeing it in a visual way, thinking that the higher strings were played farther down the fret board, not just later in time.

The first picture is the notes of G Major. I tagged each one with the number in the scale. As you can see the G is the first note, followed by A, followed by B, etc.

The numbers run down as well as across so you can see the relationship.

In the second picture I highlighted the scale you are practicing now in blue. The next section (with a different pattern) is in green, followed by another section in orange. The notes in each section are the same, but because they are on a different part of the fretboard they fall into a different pattern.